Behaviour of Tourists in India

pantelis

are the rudest tourists i`ve ever met . Absolutely rude!!!I met quite a few in Dharamsala and other times in Delhi , not even one of them showed respect for anything around him/her.They ignored the whole environment and acted as we owed something to them.Awful, terrible

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Brigit

OH my god.. I'm sorry,(I realy am) I wasn't being derisive, I'm not saying anyone is in the wrong. I merely meant to use that as an example of less Indian boys looking at western girls as an opportunity to have sex and Indian girls as the ones that they are going to marry. With is some thing a lot of the people I've talked to about this seem to think might be likely.
Please don't think I'm criticizing people who get into relationships with Indian boys. I was just trying to ask if people thought that enough attention was brought to the fact that people need to think about what they are doing a little as it effects Indian's reactions to westerners in general.
I have had personal experience with the ladies in Pushkar and the way they expect me to act because of what they have seen other western girls doing. Or the guys who think I'm likely to sleep with them even though I'm married to some one they know, because other girls have done it.
I'm not saying that to change boy friends in India is wrong ether, I'm just say that one of the girls who I met who was sleeping with two Pushkar boys didn't realise how much the people realised and judged her for it. I felt really sorry for her, and realised how little this subject is covered, in the responsible tourism section or guide books
agian not meaning to be mean to anyone

icetea

looong bushy thread! A few points that I'd like to add, though.

I think the reasons are (as always) manyfold:

1. Almost all of us, including Indians, tend to act a little looser when traveling as tourists. What else are vacations for?!

2. Apart from media exposure, call centers and MNCs, the majority of Indians have relatively little exposure to the West-as it is. And that too, is skewed. Moreover, relatively few have ever stepped outside their country.

As someone rightly pointed out here, they have very little understanding of how relationships work in the west. To them, they simply look arbitrary...no rules; so anything goes. They too will try just about anything, innocently believing that they are adhering to our "customs" and that it's perfectly alright

3. Indians have a kin/caste mentality: if you are my kind, I'll apply all those good old rules that I've been tought, so you have all my help and respect. But if you are outside my "solar system"..anything goes. Hence their loose behaviour towards foreigners and outsiders in general.

This is also the reason why people don't care much for public spaces or for community work in general. I'll keep MY house sparkling clean, but when it comes to streets and public spaces, anything goes.

They might try to cheat a foreign tourist or talk dirtily to a foreign woman. But you can rest assured that they will not do anything of the sort to their own kind, they all tend to be quite decent people when they return back home in the evening.

Have you ever noticed the transformation that some Indian men undergo once they establish that you are a "decent woman", by their standards? From that moment on they have accepted you and will behave most politely with you. The same rikshaw driver who days ago used to pass dirty looks at you will treat you impecably. It is not necessarly a matter of being a foreigner or not. It is more a matter of them certifying your adherence to their rules of conduct. They need to first place you somewhere in their social system; until then, they do not attach much significance to your feelings or the way they behave towards you. You are just a solitary puzzle piece.

4. Indian boys have little sexual experience and relatively little opportunities to act on their sexual impulses. This frustration must find some way out. Since there is no way of doing it within their community and rule system, they will just direct their attention to outsiders (and I don't just mean foreigners).

5. To this, add the perspective of lack of proper punishment. The court system is much too slow to seriously frighten anyone. A rape case in India can go on for years and years...

Nick-H

Indiadancer.... Thanks for the Human Touch

and, IceTea, common sense too.

I think last time this topic came up Mrs N told me about her bus journey that day. She said that she watched the bus conductor, noticing that he was purposefully rubbing up against every woman when giving the fare. She and one other woman had noticed this and placed their bags so that he could not.

So don't think it is just foreign girls...

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Brigit

Icetea,
Thats really well put and alot of it is what I'm trying to talk about, just with the added fact that Indian people in Pushkar have told me that they have a worse idea of westerners because of what they have seen.
Please do note though that Pushkar is known in the Tourist world as a good place to catch an Indian boy to go traveling with, and the other way round with Indian boys who would like to have sex with some one not a whore

greenchutney

where do you draw this conclusion...? their own kind?..there is very less discrimination between the foreign and domestic women..
go read the blank noise project linked somewhere in this thread by skinnylatte

lot of time, tourists, transients make these grand statements about places they 'visit'. i learn about me here more than what the 'indian' culture or parents taught me how to behave.

.now let me go talking dirtily to foreign tourists...can i do it in IM here too?.....

sirensongs

This became such a massive thread, I didn't have time to read each and every page, but just wanted to add this. Rishikesh, for sure a holy pilgrimage place for Hindus is a place where Westerners have primarily come for serious study of yoga. All alcohol and meat are prohibited there - it is not a party place.

Recently, though, the lovely white sand beaches of the local Ganges, camping, hiking and rafting have brought a more recreational kind of western tourist. It is not at all unusual to see bikini-clad folks just upriver from the bathing ghats, suntanning, courting, and so on.

One might say, okay, as long as they are not flaunting this right in the face of the Indian pilgrims, what's the harm? don't they have a "right" to suntan, and so on?

There are a number of things that go wrong in such situations. As we all know, you are rarely truly alone in India and local folks see this behaviour and make all kinds of assumptions about *all* foreign visitors on this basis. This is one reason sexual harassment is on the rise in this (usually shanti) place. It puts the women in question and by extension, all women, in greater danger by creating a perceived "looser" environment.

Additionally, there is an increase in another type of tourist to the area - what my Bengali friend calls "dickheads from Delhi and Chandigarh;" that is, horny local guys who have heard the area is a good place to pick up or ogle some bikini yoga babes.

Add to all this the western newcomer's expectations that everyone in this "spiritual" place is sweet and shanti, and you have a recipe for disaster.

A cogent point was made by my British friend (married to a local Indian woman) who has lived in the area for eight years. "This is a holy place for Hindus. Would they [foreign tourists] like it if we came to the Wailing Wall and stripped naked there? And our excuse was, we're on holiday, and we feel like it?"

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"Why do people go to India to find themselves? India is where you go to lose yourself."
Feringhee: The India Diaries

sirensongs

This happens both ways in the intercultural exchange: there are plenty of stories (ThornTree was wracked by one a couple years ago; can you say drama queen?) of western women who were serious about their Indian boyfriends, only to have their hearts shattered when the boy wimped out, usually on account of not wanting to hurt his "family." Of course, that is after he's been having carefree fun with her for six months or so. Such men must have umbilical cords where their penis (or heart) should be.

And "nearly making money from it" happens that way, too - in Koregaon Park, McLeod Ganj and other tourist ghettos there are longhaired quasi-gigolos who haunt the coffee shops and bakeries. They get a new girlfriend every season. Lots of them still receive "remittance" from a foreign girl who believes the guy's in love with her.

greenchutney

speaking of cheating's..google video's has a classic one..its in the top 100's right now. here's the link!..
safe stuff..no worry!..

Girl caught cheat on webcam


moral of the story....no webcams in the bedroom?

skinnylatte

Three times in Varanasi and elsewhere we struck up conversation with decent, married men who were boasting about their families and wives and wanting to take them to Singapore or Thailand on holiday... and three times the men asked me, right after showing me photos of their wife and kids, "how much does a whore cost per hour in these places and how do I leave my wife to have some fun while on holiday" (I couldn't answer them, obviously I've never had to pay for one myself).

So to the previous posters who commented there are assholes of all colours and stripes, especially on holiday, and Indian men are as culpable as anyone else, you're all absolutely right. Assholes are assholes, and they're everywhere.

jaz

Groping happens everywhere. In england l know plenty of women who have been groped on the tube, trains or metro in manchester BUT the difference is that it is taken so much more seriously in ENgland than in countries like India. Having spoken to other people about this it seems to be more prevalent in the Middle east (esp EGypt, probably the WORST place 4it), North India, Pakistan & Bangladesh. I was wondering why is their such a difference in SOUTH and NORTH India?? I have never been to South India but everyone l know who has been said the pervy stares are no way in comparison to what you get in the North???

cdrake

But it IS the fault of you foreigners in india with your behaveour and dress and fatal attraction....and Oh ..and...promise of no strings attached sex(which the poor guy has probably not got from indian wife for a while)..

but actually ,sirensongs, people should look at it like this. Foreign tourists visiting india and running into married indian men is something like a hardcore city chick from the US of visiting a small town in idaho or wyoming...or something,and causing havoc (intentionally or not) among it's settled country club crowd.Indians are not conservative like that(maybe some pakistanis are) . They have much latent immoral sleeze in them....like every other repressed nation(I'm sure India is among the top 10 though).

I find the amount of morality and moralizing expressed in this thread creepy and riotously funny.

shabdi

- I had basically gone on a shopping trip with my family a few months ago on my trip . In Jainagar market in Bangalore. It was Mid afternoon when the incident occured, I am quite a heavy smoker, so I stayed back and followed, I the kind of person that notices my surrounding very well probably due to riding motorcycles for years, any how a person was following my family members, I noticed eventually when we got to a dense part people in the middle of a shopping complex he procceded to as what it's called in India eve's tease my cousin.
- What shocked me is that she went through the emotional facial features of being ashamed and pretended it didnt happen.

- Well obviously I was very upset the guy was fairly physicaly built, I ran right up to him and smashed him across the face.
I a fight enused between him and I was yelling and literally not letting up, I after multiple punches to the face, and a back round house kick to his head he proceded to fall to the ground, in the scuffle I lost my glasses fell of I continued kicking him while he was on the ground, I suspect i broke 1 of his ribs as he was bleeding quite badly and was screamming.

- This moment shocked me a Police office had pulled a gun on me, threating to shoot, I protested in english tell him to say sorry.
- He apologized to my cousin she was still shooken up.
The person appologized but there was a mob of at least 400 people all shopping had stopped in the market complex, there was yelling in many languages Kannada, Telegu and Hindi.

- My couzin tried getting me out and mentioned something called half murder, the people were opting to take the Eve's teasers on to the street to tech him a lesson from what I could understand.

Well the cop had shackled the person and was slighlty caning him told my cousin and I to leave.


I was wondering as a foriegner could that situation of mine gone very badly if the mob of people attacked me or if the cop
arrested me. As well the pervert will he be reprimanded by the police or due to the sever beating would they allow him off.

sirensongs

Wow, Shabdi, that is quite a story.

I recently learned that, far from just being a nuisance or harassment, "outraging the modesty of" a woman is a real *crime* under Indian law. This includI es making indecent propositions, by the way.

But assaulting such a person (the groper) is also a crime. That was a close call with the cop over-reacting by pulling his gun on you. Your reaction is totally understandable, but whether visitor or local, you could get in serious trouble by doing so. (Never know whether the groper has friends in high places!....)

It's very very difficult to keep one's temper in such a situation, but losing it could only make things worse.

In lieu of real due process, I would personally root for the mob to have their way with the groper.

sirensongs

[quote=cdrake]But it IS the fault of you foreigners in india with your behaveour and dress and fatal attraction....and Oh ..and...promise of no strings attached sex(which the poor guy has probably not got from indian wife for a while)..
but actually ,sirensongs, people should look at it like this. Foreign tourists visiting india and running into married indian men is something like a hardcore city chick from the US of visiting a small town in idaho or wyoming...or something,and causing havoc (intentionally or not) QUOTE]

Chandra, you are kidding, right?

If the locals have problems with their marriages, those problems are their own...not to be foisted onto or blamed on visitors.

I always discourage foreign women from making casual conversation with local men for this reason. But if the mere presence of a single woman "causes havoc," she cannot be blamed for the reaction of the troubled men who choose to regard her as some kind of weird fantasy object. The problem is theirs, not hers.